Contra Mozilla

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Death Panels

For those of Moloch's minions who decry the various pro-life bills which have passed in state legislatures, there's always the fact that many of the nation's courts are run by judges who are pro-abortion. Thus, North Dakota's pro-life law is halted, not because it does anything unconstitutional, nor because the requirement that abortionists need to have hospital-admitting privileges is particularly onerous, but because it would result in the closure of the state's last abortion mill.

Maybe the state should use imminent domain to buy the clinic and then erect a shopping mall.

A Few Good Links (vol 4)

I'll accept my co-blogger's contribution and continue numbering from his:
  1. A list of the ten priciest cities in which to rent an apartment. I do not live in any of these (the median rent here is a much more "reasonable" $1093/month, which is still a rip-off), and I notice that (appallingly) many of them also make the top 10 list for cities in which it is better to rent than to buy. I hope I don't end up living in one of those places.
  2. Fighting the good fight for purity.
  3. It's been 45 years since Humanae Vitae. It was despised at the time, but that is how all prophets are treated, and this work was indeed were indeed prophetic.
  4. Professor Peter Kreeft gave a talk at Steubenville on how to lose the culture war. He's given this basic talk before, though not from the "Screwtape" perspective (that I know of). Here's a summary.
  5. More about the porn wars in the UK. That this is handed down by their national government suggests that subsidiary isn't being used: but the issue actually is big enough to deserve a national effort, there just needs to be a local effort to really make it work. And Prime Minister Cameron is actually fighting the good fight on this one.
  6. Dr Scott Hahn has a truly epic home library.
  7. I've heard people say that the doctrine of Hell is the most unpopular of all Christian doctrines, followed closely by Original Sin. Actually, the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God gives Hell a close running, since there are many who would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. The Anglican cleric Desmond Tutu is apparently such a man.
  8. On the topic of gays: it's worth looking at the Pope's remarks concerning gay clergy and "judging" homosexuals in their actual context. And, as Mr Ross Douthat puts it, we need mercy, but also discipline.
  9. Popular truth and modernized morality can only get you so far. Or, as Chesterton quipped, a dead thing goes with the flow, but only a living thing can swim against the current.
  10. Rebecca Hamilton explains why censoring internet comments on a blog which is meant to foster discussion is actually a good thing: "All I have to do to shut them [various trolls and internet ruffians] down and allow others to speak is delete their blasts of 20 hateful comments, or, as I often do, allow the most thoughtful of their blast of twenty comments through and delete the rest. If I didn’t, the nice people who enjoy this blog would end up leaving and all I would have left would be the trashy trolls and their hate-filled, bullying agenda."
  11. Well, that's certainly one way to shut down a protest peacefully. Maybe there's something to that "turn the other cheek" business. God bless Governor McCrory.

That's it for now.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Quick Links: About Zimmerman, Martin, and Racism

Two quick links about Zimmerman, Martin, and racism. The first is to Huffington Post, which has a surprisingly balanced opinion piece up about how to curb racism (real or perceived) in America. The second is National Review, which reports another incident of racism fueled by the race baiters and hucksters like Al $Sharpton and President Obama: in which a white man is assaulted and robbed by some black men in the name of Trayvon Martin.

Quick Link: I Kind of Want to Go See "The Conjuring"

Just because it ticks off the right people and in the right way. Maybe the idea of a Demon which possesses mothers and makes them kill their children come as little too soon on the heels of the Texas pro-abortion rallying cry of "Hail Satan!" Or maybe it's just a little too honest for the comfort of the folks who think that mothers ought to murder their own children.

Quick Links: Guns and Crime and Cops

Some of these links come from the Ace of Spades blog's post linked below. In no particular order. First, Maetenloch has a takedown-summary of the Ms. Magazine propaganda-piece against guns. Frankly, the woman who did this is guilty of a few crimes of negligence already (most states make it a crime to leave an unattended and unlocked firearm where it can be accessed by children, as this woman repeatedly did), though she'll probably never face any real consequences from this. Not much of a fisking or takedown, but this line pretty much encapsulates the right attitude towards propaganda pieces like the Ms. article: "And of course she found the gun dangerous - mostly because she refused to learn anything about the weapon and also because she did willfully dumb and dangerous things like this."

While we're on the topic, it turns out that at the same time that the NYPD refuses to allow civilians (whatever happened to responsible citizens?) to carry weapons in general and guns in particular, they also refuse to protect those same civilians when said civilians are under attack from somebody who is breaking the law and carrying a weapon. To be fair, the crime rate has fallen a bit in New York (as compared to other cities like Chicago with equally draconian no-guns policies), but still: there were two cops on-site during this attack who locked themselves in a car nearby and just watched. Apparently, they were afraid that the attacker had a gun and not just a knife (which make me feel a whole lot better about NYPD), thereby allowing a knifeman (who had been n a spree of sorts) to stab an innocent civilian who himself had nothing but his bare hands and his wits to protect himself. And the victim in question is now told that he cannot sue the police for failing to intervene, that the police had no duty to intervene here.

Speaking of utterly worthless police, in Detroit the police will rob you. I guess they've decided that if you can't beat 'em then you can join 'em, but when the cops are crooks and criminals and the civilians aren't allowed anything with which to defend themselves, we get a police state without any actual security. I guess that Benjamin Franklin was right. Perhaps this is why Detroit is one of the most violent cities in the country (beat out only by another town in Michigan).


Monday, July 29, 2013

Quick Link: Choice

So, about my last post concerning abortion and the movie Commando, I guess the same thing applies to "choice."

For some reason, I'm reminded of some dialogue from Commando. Modified, of course:

"Remember when we said we wanted abortion to be a safe and rare choice?"

"That's right, pro-abortion activists, you did!"

"We lied."

Frankly, the only part of "we want abortion to be a safe, rare, and legal choice" that the pro-abortion zealot actually believes in is "legal." The more legal, the better.

Church Hymns

A good rule of thumb for church hymns is, "If you can imagine the hymn being sung by a Disney Princess (Pocahontas, Ariel, et al.) then it is not a good hymn." That about does away with the entire OCP selection, or at least anything which originates with that press. I find that the communion hymns are especially weep-worthy since music directors the world over claim that the people need something "easy" and "repetitive" to sing while in line. Meanwhile, nobody in the long line of people ever really looks interested in singing. I grant that not everyone is going to sing if we do one of Aquinas' hymns or "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," but I suspect that people will at least try to listen to these hymns. Speaking of simple and repetitive:


And this particular version was written for the secular purpose of being a part of a movie score. Nevertheless, it is more beautiful and frankly more prayerful than much of what passes for hymns in our parishes these days.

Quick Link: Safe?

For some reason, I'm reminded of some dialogue from Commando. Modified, of course:

"Remember when we said we wanted abortion to be safe and rare?"

"That's right, pro-abortion activists, you did!"

"We lied."

Two Articles from CNN on Religion

I don't generally find CNN to be a particularly good news source (nor a particularly true views source), but they do have a pair of interesting articles in their religion section. The first breaks down atheists into 6 distinct (but are they different?) groups. The second article is about why the writer thinks many Millennials are leaving religion (and in particular, evangelicalism). My comment on the first article is that there is nothing particularly surprising about there being different kinds of atheists, since any large movement or organization will tend to break into smaller and oftentimes opposing parties or factions. My comment on the second article is that it may be right, but that it does contain a strange contradiction. That contradiction is the claim that many "young" people (call it the under-30 crowd, since we're talking about Millennials) crave the old "high Church" style of liturgical worship, but reject the old creeds and especially the old moral teachings that should go with it. It takes all three (creed, code, and worship) to make a religion. A lot of people are weary of the culture wars, I know; and a lot complain about the simple moral teachings of the "conservative" denominations, sects, and churches. But this is really no reason for a church to stop teaching those things (though it may be a sign that those teachings could be made more clearly).

Loneliness: Better Than Being Alone?

Abigail Reimel asks the musical question for singles:  "And, after all, if the guy [or girl] is enjoyable enough to be friends with, why wouldn’t he be enjoyable to date?" The question reminds me a bit of my college days, and in particular of the mindset of many of the girls I knew then, in that it is essentially the opposite of their approach. I hung out mostly with a Protestant crowd then, but I guess I've seen this with some of the Catholics I've known too, an attitude which says that it's good to just not date for a while. I can't tell you how many of the young ladies I knew would say that they were "Taking a year off from dating" or "Taking a year off for the Lord": these "year offs" often ended up being  four years, or (sometimes) ended up being only a matter of months (and then dating some other guy). Being rejected is one thing, and it hurts even more if their was some leading-on prior to the rejection, but being lied to is what really kills the relationship.

Reimel actually gives some good advice in the post, especially the bit about women needing to guard their hearts. This at least parallels the advice to men that they should keep custody of their eyes.

And I've always held that men and women, even unmarried men and women, can be "just friends" without ever becoming romantically involved. Still, it's always worth asking why a person who makes a good friend wouldn't also make a good husband or wife. Answers to that question do exist, by the way, but it seems to me like they're often not sought, and it also seems like most of those answers are the sorts which preclude any romantic relationship anyway.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Am I Really Doing This?

Really, I got nothing for today. Well, nothing but a desire to get in today's post to complete Jennifer Fulwiler's 7 posts in 7 days challenge. Um, neither the other guy nor I normally write blog posts during the weekends. Occasionally yes, but not always. I had a busy weekend as is, and now it's late and I'm tired.

It looks to me like the other guy didn't fare too much better based on how his post today looks (more rambling than the earlier posts this week), though I guess it's still better than this. But yeah, this is all I've got.

Follow-up Post: Sex Abuse and Blaming the Victim

In Friday's post, I wrote a  bit about a passage from Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom, noting that while I don't entirely agree with everything he says, he makes at least a couple of good points. Yesterday, I followed up with a personal story to illustrate the first point, which is that sometimes standing up for yourself (even "violently") does work.  The second is that saying this is not blaming the victim, which is what I want to write about today.

The "blaming the victim" card is akin to the "racist" and "sexist" and "bigot" cards, in that they are often played to silence the other side. "Blaming the victim" is often trotted out in discussion of rape (and other lesser forms of sexual assault)--it gets it most frequent play here. To be fair, there are cases in which it seems like the victim actually is being blamed (noon of these charges would ever derail a discussion if they were always plainly untrue). However, far more often it's when a genuine solution--or start to a solution, a necessary if not a sufficient component of the solution--is proposed which demands a change in behavior of the victims and/or the "bystanders" ratehr than the perpetrators.

Now, obviously, the perpetrator is the one hose behavior ultimately needs to be changed (at least curbed or checked). But "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," as the expression goes. And in many cases, the prevention (and, really the cure) involves some social change on the part of the potential victims.

Note well the word potential. These are people who are not necessarily already victims, but who might conceivably become victims. The woman who walks alone at night in dark alleys is not necessarily ever victimized, either by kidnappers or rapists or muggers, but she certainly is a potential victim of these things. To some extent, the woman alone and not in a dark alley might also be a potential victim of these things: but which of the two women is more likely to be a victim of these abuses?

I will grant that in the perfect world, neither would be. I will also grant that we all desire such a perfect world, and that such a perfect world exists: in heaven, but not this earth. We live in this world and not in the perfect world. We have to work with what we have, not what we want to have, and so we must take such precautions as not walking down dark alleys alone at night.

Looking now towards the child-abuse crises, I tend to agree with Mr Wolfe that part of the solution is to teach boys from a young age to stand up for what is right. If this means that they must fight occasionally, even lose, so be it. When they choose at a young age to be victims, quiet victims, passive victims, then they are still victims. They are victims both of the perpetrators and of the "bystanders," who in this case are the people tasked with raising boys to become men: their parents. This means that while the particular abuser is primarily and formally to blame, the parents do share some blame in turning their children into victims, they have played some material role in making their children become victims.

It was never their intention that things would play out this way, and of course the vast majority of children are not abused in this way--either by priests or by school staff or by relatives or by "friends and acquaintances" of the family. Yet, by raising boys to believe that violence is the worst thing in the world, that they ought never commit violence even in the defense of themselves, they have raised a generation of victims, of boys who would permit violence of the worst kind against themselves without raising a hand or (often) even a voice in their own defense until much, much to late. They boys themselves are nothing but victims, and really can't be blamed: they were doing what they have been trained to do, and finding that what they have been trained to do is hopelessly inadequate when faced with sexual molestation. And, because they put up no resistance, even helpless resistance, their abusers would continue to strike again and again, thus creating more victims.

Educating children, teaching them virtues, teaching the boys the "military" virtues are all difficult tasks. But the alternative is to create not merely a generation of cowards or cads, but of victims. And that is a tragedy which cuts as deeply as the actual abuses suffered by these victims.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Quote of the Day: On Justice and Mercy

Father Dwight Longenecker has a interesting post-combo (for lack of a better term) about "Peace and Justice" Catholics and "Purity and Piety Catholics." I think the point of the post is to be irenic, to reconcile both the "conservative" and the "liberal" Catholics. It's practically a work of mercy to do this, and I think he gets some things right and some things wrong:
The left is wrong and the right is wrong and the left is right and the right is right.

Peace and justice Catholics are right to take a prophetic stance against corporate greed, governments that engage in unjust war, the destruction of the environment, racism and any form of injustice. They are right to stand up for the poor, the marginalized and those on the margins of society. They are wrong, however, when they foster dissent in the church and turn a blind eye to the moral teachings and the authority of the Catholic church. 
Too often when the Peace and Justice Catholics demand peace they really mean the appeasement of evil. Too often they mistake pacifism for peace. Similarly, they too often they call for justice for some oppressed group, but never think that justice would also judge their moral laxity. Why don’t the Peace and Justice Catholics demand justice for the millions of unborn babies that have been slaughtered? 
On the other side, the Piety and Purity conservatives are all for “family values”. They are opposed to same sex marriage, contraception, abortion and divorce. However they are too often silent about the injustice in our society. I’m shocked at the anti-semitism and subtle racism I sometimes hear within their ranks. I’m worried when their conservative family values are equated with a jingoistic, uncritical American patriotism and militarism. Why are the silent about the assault on the environment, the plight of immigrants and the widening wealth disparity in the developed world? Why do we hear so little about their involvement in the fight against hunger and solidarity with the poor? Why are they so often dismissive and hateful of everyone not like themselves?

He then goes on to say that we should all strive to be "Justice and Mercy" Catholics, a point I agree with. But. It seems like in the hurry to try and appeal to both sides, these kinds of posts often alienate a lot of people. My main beef is that while he picks on two sides which do exist, one of these two sides has a lot more representatives than the other.

His "silly caricature" of the liberal Catholics actually does describe many of the liberal Catholics I know. They say that it's important to care about the poor and downtrodden, and place primary concern on "social justice," then decide that social justice is best applied to calling for open borders and in-state tuition for "undocumented immigrants" and greater government social spending (a few of the better ones do, to their credit, volunteer in food pantries and soup kitchens and the like). And perhaps just as often, while they call of the government to spend more and more to accomplish less and less in the name of their faith, they openly oppose any attempts to regulate abortions, and (even more commonly) actively support the so-called "gay agenda" up to and including spending their time calling those of us who support traditional marriage bigots (I once was called this by a liberal Catholic friend for saying that I thought the sacrament of Holy Matrimony could only be received by a man and a woman regardless of what society as a whole does).

On the other hand, I find that his "silly caricature" of the "Piety and Purity" (conservative) Catholics really is mostly a caricature. I know one or two Catholics who are like this, but most of the conservative Catholics I know still do care about (and even volunteer to help) the poor and downtrodden, even if we exclude the poorest and most downtrodden of all (the unborn, and for that matter women in "crisis pregnancies"). Perhaps it is because I don't frequent the Latin Mass.

It seems to me that there is a second problem, related to the first. Suppose we grant the caricatures (e.g. that the "Purity and Piety" crowd is surly and grumpy and looks down on others, that the "Peace and Justice" crowd openly undermines Church authority, gleefully subverts the Church's doctrines, and actively flaunts the Church's moral teachings). Which is worse? The former is bad, I'll grant, in that it turns people off to the Church. But the latter is worse, in that it turns people off to the Church while saying that the Church is not something which is worth heeding even in principle. It muddies the waters, so that those who want to figure out what the Church really does teach are left confused.

I agree with Fr Longenecker, though, that both camps have room for improvement, and I like the "Justice and Mercy" idea, though I think that a better summary would be to say that the conservatives want justice without mercy, and the liberals want mercy without justice.

Follow Up Post: On Sex Abuse, a Personal Story

In yesterday's post, I wrote a  bit about a passage from Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom, and noted that while I don't agree with everything that Mr Wolfe's character says or thinks, there are two important points to be made. The first is that we are raising boys to become men without chests (and ultimately, trousered apes), and that this does not help (rather, it exasperates) the sex abuse scandals. The second is that saying this is not blaming the victim. I want to write briefly about the first of these two things a little more, with some personal stories.

No, I was not ever molested by any priests. My parents were cautious enough to keep us away from any of the ones who might have tried (we simply don't know), and most of the rest are basically family friends who have never even so much as been suspected of it, let alone accused by any parishioners. However, I have experienced sexual harassment which borders on molestation. It was not from family or friends of the family or teachers or clergy, but it was from a soccer teammate.

It was my freshman year in high school, and I had been enjoying soccer since I was in the fourth grade, so I decided to go out for the varsity team (it was a small enough high school that there was some chance of my being on the team). I ended up on the JV team, though we had practice with the varsity and I was allowed to dress down with the varsity team during the games, and even (occasionally) to play in the games. One of the seniors on the team took it as his solemn responsibility to haze me: it seems like every freshman has to be hazed by somebody or several somebodies, whether sophomores, juniors, seniors, or some combination thereof. For me it was the senior who was one of the team's captains.

At first I thought nothing of it: it was usually a flyby slap on the butt, generally aimed in the area that is reserved for friendly "team encouragement slaps", so whatever. Later the slaps would move a bit lower and a bit inwards, which was annoying but I assumed at first was just sloppy aim. I think I probably mentioned something about it to him, but don't remember the exchange.

One day, a few months into the season, the slaps got replaced with a bit of quick groping, which I told him to stop in no uncertain terms. I also was a bit more on my guard, so it was rare enough. One day, my guard was down (we were in a scrimmage, and he was supposed to be at the other side of the field), for whatever reason. He had switched sides to guard me (I hadn't noticed), and as soon as the coach's back was turned did the groping thing did his little groping thing. I pushed his arm away and started to move, but he grabbed for me.

I reacted quickly, so quick that I didn't even have time to close my hand or choose a vital area, but the blow actually spun his head slightly (it was half-slap, half chop), and caused him to reel a couple of steps back. He wasn't laid out exactly, nor doubled over, so I was ready to die at that moment. I was foolish enough (from a fighter's perspective) to let him get his bearing, and had I attacked with a few good punches probably could have laid him out with the element of surprise on my side. For whatever reason, I just waited for a moment to let him recover from his surprise.

At that point, I basically hoped to land a few good punches for honor's sake, but to my surprise he kind of blinked and rubbed his face and jaw, looked at me, and then laughed and walked away. I had a few moments of fear (especially after that practice when I saw him talking to the upperclassmen on the team about it), but I never had issues with him again, nor was there as much hazing from the rest of the team (except, oddly, the freshmen and a few of the sophomores). I sometimes wonder what's become of him, since I never really saw him again after that year.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Quote of the Day: Gene Wolfe on Sex Abuse

I've been reading Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom, which is one of his newer works. It's also one with the most explicitly Catholic protagonist (the protagonist is a young man who time traveled to the past, became a pirate captain, then found himself in the modern world and became a priest). This is one of the more interesting exchanges in that book:

THERE WAS a meeting of all clergy last night. Fr. Wahl and I drove into town for it. Priests molesting"children" was the big topic. Bishop Scully tried not to show how he felt about it, but it leaked through.

"It has happened," he told us, "and happened right here in our diocese. More than one priest has sinned in this way. What is worse, priests who have confessed and been forgiven have sinned again. Every one of you must unite with me in opposing this sin, and report it to me whenever it occurs. Believe me, you are doing your brother no favor by concealing his sin."

After that, he detailed four cases without revealing the identity of the priests involved. When he asked for questions, those he got were pretty obvious. "How could we know a brother priest's sin unless the sanctity of the confessional were violated?" "Shouldn't a report be made to the police?" "How much was needed to settle these cases?" "Shouldn't a guilty priest be punished as well as counseled?" "Might not some priests be falsely accused?" An so on.

Finally, I stood up. I said, "When you began, Your Excellency, I thought I was going to hear about little girls being forced by priests, girls in kindergarten of first grade. That was what I expected. I used to run the Youth Center at Saint Teresa's. All the victims you talked about were boys, and it sounded like they were teenagers. I'm not used to thinking of teenaged boys as children, so it took me a while to get on top of what has really been happening. Isn't it our job to tell boys that they shouldn't put up with anything like this? I don't believe that there are many priests who would keep trying if the boy he was after yelled and swung a few punches."

After that I caught it from everybody--alright, to be fair is was not, but it seemed like it. I was blaming the victim. That was one of them, and both of the priests who felt like that piled it on strong.

I was encouraging violence. That was the other one and the most popular one. I was blamed for encouraging so much violence that I felt like I might be lynched. I never got the chance to defend myself in the meeting, so I am going to to do it here. I was not blaming the kids. I was blaming us grown-ups for teaching them to be victims.

If you teach a girl to act like a sheep, you do her quite a bit of harm. But if you teach a boy to be a sheep, you do a lot more. If the girl is lucky, there will be boys to protect her. But they have to be real boys, not sheep. A boy who has been taught will not protect himself of anybody else. If he is molested and does not fight, the people who taught him to be a sheep are at least as much to blame as the molester. Maybe more.

As for encouraging violence, I have to wonder how many of those priests who molested boys thought the boys wanted it and enjoyed it, even if they would not say so. Many of them--maybe all of them--must have thought that if a boy did not like it, he would yell and fight. The boys were the victims of those priests, I am not arguing that they were not. But those priests were the victims of the people who taught the boys that even a little bit of violence was the worst thing in the world. The priests had only one victim, or that is how it seems to me. Those people had two, because the priest was another. The tough kids who came to Saint Teresa's Youth Center would have coldcocked anybody who tried what those priests had done.



Gene Wolfe is notorious for using unreliable narrators, though I have seen these theme in his stories before (e.g. one of his short stories, about a reality television show in a dystopian future). Whatever Mr Wolfe (a Catholic, by the way) thinks about this, I can say that I actually sympathize with the narrator/protagonist above. Granted, it wasn't my first thought when I learned about the abusers, and I am skeptical about any claim that they might have been confused as to whether or not this was wrong (to put it mildly).

With that said, he does have a point, or really two points. The first (larger) point is that, in the words of C.S. Lewis, we have been raising boys to become "men without chests." They are too timid to really fight or even stand up for themselves. The second point is that it is not blaming the victim to say this, but rather in this case it is to point out that the victim was made a victim twice--once by the molesting priest, and once again by all of the other authorities (parents, role models) in his life who did not teach him to stand up for himself, even a little. Would he have won in a physical fight against a priest? Perhaps not, though I suspect that if a child came home with some bruises and/or bleeding the situation would have been resolved a lot quicker than it actually was, bad as this would be for the child. There certainly wouldn't have been more than one or two instances, and probably no repeat instances.

The whole thing would have been made a lot more public a lot more quickly in this case, which would have been for the best for everybody. Alternatively, the priest would have dropped it then and there (if he were smart), and perhaps no more incidences would have been forthcoming.

Boys are increasingly being taught that "violence never solves anything"--this comes from some good motives and some bad ones. Violence obviously should not be the first recourse, but at the point in time when sexual molestation is occurring the situation has already escalated to require more desperate measures form the victim. The result of this "no violence" campaign--which is, oddly enough, just old enough to have been picked up on by C.S. Lewis in his Abolition of Man, thus dating it to around the time that these abuses would have first begun--has been that we have raised now three generations of "men without chests," in which chivalry has slowly but surely faded from the manly virtues; the cardinal virtues of fortitude, prudence, justice, and temperance have all faded with it, and this is not a coincidence.

As Professor Budzisewski has observed in his book On the Meaning of Sex, the result is that rather than men becoming either knights (for the more spirited) or cads (for the less spirited), they have largely grown up to be either cads (for the more spirited) or poltroons (for the less spirited). So enters the next phase of C.S. Lewis' prophetic book, that of the trousered ape. I am sure that this may ruffle a few feathers, so there wil be two follow-up posts later this week.

A Few Good Links (vol 3)

Not sure the etiquette on this, since the first two volumes were the other guy, but I thought I'd try my hand at a few good links. I'll just continue the volume numbering where he left off. To the links!

  1. Ace of Spades has been having some fun with the media's biased reporting, this time concerning Zimmerman. The story: Zimmerman came out of hiding to save a family from their car, which had overturned and was on fire.
  2. Patrick Archbold gets in a little "I told you so." Unfortunate, but predictable: DOMA is overturned, and within a month there's a federal judge ordering one state to recognize another states "gay marriages." States' rights indeed.
  3. Interesting idea, but still not really equivalent to what's going on here: if Catholics lose the fight against Obama's kulturkampf HHS Contraceptive Mandate, then there should be a consolation clause which demands other to pay for our recreational activities.
  4. The NSA claims that it can't search its own email. That's a good indication that the entire organization should be disbanded.
  5. Priestly celibacy and abstaining from meat on Fridays are not "doctrines of demons," despite what some anti-Catholic preachers will claim.

Do I need to make some closing remark? I don't think so.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Crucified for Hedonism

Joseph Pearce has a brief post up which teaches an important truth to a culture which wishes to sacrifice truth to hedonism:
Those who embrace their crosses selflessly are liberated from their slavery to themselves. This is the only freedom worth living for or dying for. Those who hate their crosses are nailing themselves more painfully to them, enslaving themselves to their own selfishness. 
The number of suicides is increasing. Despair is increasing. Nihilism is rampant. Addiction is an epidemic. These are all signs of a society that is crucifying itself through its hatred of the Cross.  
Saint Augustine wrote that the demons are ruled by their passions rather than their intellects, but I don't think that most men do much better these days. Such is life in a culture which embraces hedonism. The demons cannot rule themselves, but they wish to rule others; we can't control our own passions and urges, and so are unable to use our intellects to guide ourselves. The result is a great social death wish.

Quote of the Day: Charles De Koninck on Beauty

I discovered the writings of Charles de Koninck a few years ago thanks to a fellow physicist-philosopher, and suffice it to say that I can't recommend them enough. The Charles de Koninck Project is doing a good work by transcribing and translating his works to English; today I went over to their site and found this post:
The intelligence as such is a certain concrete nature, it is a natural appetite of its proper object, the intelligible. Being, considered as a term of this appetite, has beauty as a transcendental property. That is to say that every being, as an object of intelligence, is beautiful. Consequently, although mathematical being, being only a being of reason, does not at all participate in goodness, and cannot be an object of will, nevertheless it participates in beauty. And thus, like every object of intelligence, mathematical being can be indirectly an object of will insofar as will desires the concrete good of intelligence. In effect, one can distinguish a twofold good of intelligence: the good of the object considered as term of the desire to know for the sake of knowing, which is beauty–pulchrum proprie pertinet ad rationem causae formalis–but it is also the good of the concrete act which entails knowledge in intelligence taken as nature, and this act is an object of will and causes in it this characteristic joy which is as a complement to contemplation. Without being essential to the beauty which is formally in contemplation, delight is a quasi per se accidens. The enjoyment proper to beatitude which consists in contemplation is consequently an enjoyment of the object of intelligence as object of intelligence; this enjoyment, which one can call aesthetic, is the most noble of all pleasures.

All beings--whether beings of reason or real beings--participate in some way in beauty. This makes sense (and yes, it can include the demons, as St Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:14), that anything which is is beautiful, that it can be contemplated and appreciated for its beauty. Even the pagan philosophers recognized this (notable, Aristotle), though it took Christianity to show that this beauty ultimately points back to God, that while contemplation is among the highest acts of man qua man even here, that contemplation is elevated when it turns to God in prayer. It is further elevated in the next life, when it turns to the contemplation of God "face-to-face" in heaven.

And just as beauty in this life can be distorted (again, think of Satan, but think also of smut), so too do I think it will be distorted in the next life for those in Hell. They may contemplate God in fear and loathing, and do their own misery is increased by this loathing, this inescapable beauty upon which their backs are forever turned. Perhaps Hell is the realization that the heart's greatest desire is right there, behind you, but the inability to ever see it when you turn: always behind you, never before you.


An in related news, the Dominicana blog (St Joseph Province) has a post about modern music and heresy:
With this in mind, we return to the driver’s seat. When listening to popular music one is often most struck by the euphoria-inducing dance beat. It seems that much of the music played on pop stations is composed/generated/programmed with the intent that one dance to it at a club. Frustrated in such a pursuit, I find myself relegated to fist-pumping. And yet, when one goes in search of the other elements typically associated with music (melody, harmony, lyrics, etc.), the pursuit is many times in vain. The profusion of DJ mashups testifies to the fact that it is indeed possible to cut a record having only played four chords, and the staggering amount of forced and awkward rhyme (Yes, “man” does rhyme with “man”) makes evident a clear disassociation of modern music from substantive poetry. For example, take a song popular about four years ago: Apologize by Timbaland featuring OneRepublic. In the song, the primary artist’s sole contribution are the syllables “Eh, eh, eh” repeated some two dozen times to the exact same three notes at strategic points throughout. I note the phenomenon merely to suggest that musicality is no longer the primary criterion for the production and consumption of pop music. Where then can the casual listener turn the dial for solace?

We do get glimpses of heaven on earth--and Hell also.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Quote: Mark Steyn on Detroit's Downfall

Mark Steyn is one of my favorite political commentators. Here's his article on the Detroit bankruptcy fiasco:
Detroit was the industrial powerhouse of America, the “arsenal of democracy,” and in 1960 the city with the highest per capita income in the land. Half a century on, Detroit’s population has fallen by two-thirds, and in terms of “per capita income,” many of the shrunken pool of capita have no income at all beyond EBT cards... 
The city’s Institute of Arts paid $300,000 for the original Howdy Doody puppet — or about the cost of 300,000 three-bedroom homes. Don’t get too excited — you can’t go to Detroit and see him on display; he’s in storage. He’s in some warehouse lying down doing nothing all day long, like so many other $300,000 city employees... 
With bankruptcy temporarily struck down, we’re told that “innovation hubs” and “enterprise zones” are the answer. Seriously? In my book After America, I observe that the physical decay of Detroit — the vacant and derelict lots for block after block after block — is as nothing compared to the decay of the city’s human capital. Forty-seven percent of adults are functionally illiterate, which is about the same rate as the Central African Republic, which at least has the excuse that it was ruled throughout the Seventies by a cannibal emperor. Why would any genuine innovator open a business in a Detroit “innovation hub”? Whom would you employ? The illiterates include a recent president of the school board, Otis Mathis, which doesn’t bode well for the potential work force a decade hence.

I suspect that as our nation continues its decadent slump toward barbarism, stories like this will become more frequent.

Also, "If Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit."

Quick Link: How Bad Is the Media?

This bad. They're not even trying to be investigative journalists, or to report the facts; instead, they have a narrative, and they're sticking to it, and churning out whatever propaganda they can to further that narrative:
It would take a Special Kind of Idiot to think she was on-the-level. 
But the media is filled with exactly that sort of Special Kind of Idiots. And the mistake is on them, not her. 
Again: All they had to do was... ask a single question. 
Which the media didn't do. Why bother? We know the facts without asking about them.We know that Zimmerman protesters are "Racist & Proud;" what is the point of examining evidence about this closely? We know what the evidence would show, if we had any. 
"The media can't resist a good storyline" is of course their only failing, you know. 
By the way: The media routinely chides Breibart and the right generally for getting stories wrong. But I don't seem to notice the media itself ever confessing error and apologizing in cases of gross and stupid error like this. 
What I see them doing is burying stories, stealth-correcting, or just leaving the error to displace the truth (as happened with IRS Building Bomber Joseph Stack, an avowed communist whom the media still insists was a "Tea Partier" or at least had such leanings).
An, it's worth noting, the media mistook this woman holding a parody racist sign ("We're racist & we're proud!") as a Zimmerman supporter, despite that fact that this occurred at an anti-Zimmerman rally. So even with the narrative to advance, basic journalistic integrity, to say nothing of simple honesty, would have required the reporter in question to ask if the sign was serious and if the woman really was pro-Zimmerman before reporting that this was the case.

Does It Matter Who Has Better Sex?

My thoughts on that study which my co-blogger linked saying that Catholics have better sex are nicely summed up in this post by Dr Stacy Trasancos:
The information is based on a questionnaire, the National Health and Social Life Survey, conducted in 1992 by the Population Research Center. It’s not that the analysis or the conclusions are necessarily wrong; it’s that this approach could be lampoonable. 
Why? Well, if someone had used this data to convince me to consider Catholicism on the basis that Catholics have better sex because a scientific study says so, I’d have wondered why someone so sure of the conclusions needed to hide behind a study to back it up. Science is supposed to investigate what is unknown, not what is known. Then I’d point out how sketchy the data is.

Sketchy data and a lampoonable approach to evangelization is a good summary. The point of Catholicism or religion in general is not to improve one's sex life, nor to otherwise enhance one's pleasure. That's a mostly cynical look at religion, the same old "health and wealth gospel" modified for a culture which cares more about sex than money. The reason for choosing a particular religion (or other worldview) is first that it is true, and if that can't be decided then second that it is good (though goodness is so intrinsically linked to truth that there can scarcely be goodness without truth).

When a study like this is used to pitch conversion to Catholicism, it's somewhat akin to saying, "We can't know whether the Catholic Faith is true or not, we can't even know whether the Catholic Religion is good or not, but you should still join the Catholic Church because you'll likely have better sex. In other words, join the Church because it feels good!" "Because it feels good" is not sufficient grounds for making major moral decisions, and this is the very attitude against which Christianity in general (and Catholicism in particular) has to contend. This attitude is, in short, rather antithetical to a religion which claims to be followers of the Truth.

That point is complimented by the fact that this study itself is rather poorly constructed. Asking people if they feel loved during intercourse or whether they enjoy intercourse with their partner doesn't exactly provide a stable metric for determining who is having the best sex {1}.  The frequency and duration of sexual intercourse are more solidly measurable by "scientific" means, though this study only attempted to measure the former and not the latter). And who buys what kind of underwear how often is hardly an indicator of who is having the best sex, or even (for that matter) the most "kinky" sex--a different story entirely.
I submit that we don’t need to be talking about how loved someone feels during intercourse as a measure of “better sex”, and neither do we need to be talking about how often people have sex, whether people think it’s okay to have sex just for pleasure, or the specifics of their underwear buying habits as a measure of the quality of the Catholic experience. Frankly, that information is none of anyone’s business anyway. I would refuse to participate in such a survey on those grounds too.

What I’m trying to say is: Don’t rely on science to answer non-scientific questions.

There’s a better way.
This is the crux of the scientific analysis of this "study," and Dr Trasancos goes on to analyze some of these findings in a more theological manner by linking them to the Trinity. I also agree with her assessment. I want to go back to where I started by stating that this is not the kind of thing which is necessarily good for evangelization. To the extent that it will be taken by people who don't understand the science/methodology/problems underlying the study and then pitched as "food for thought" to people who do, it may actually become a roadblock. It's the kind of thing that looks like bad science on the surface, which then turns of people who understand the difference between good science and bad by convincing them that the best Catholicism has to offer in its defense is pseudoscience.

I will grant that no apologia alone can convert a person, and few can even get most people to stop and consider conversion, or even to consider simple fairness apart from conversion. But we live in an age where science is king (along with Sports and Sex), and where "Science" is invoked as a stick with which to beat the Church: namely, "The Church is against science and impedes scientific progress while supporting junk science." Therefore, when a study of dubious scientific quality is invoked as reason to convert to the Church, and when it is subsequently demolished by scientific-minded people from outside the Church, it reinforces in those peoples' minds their own chief (stated) objection to the Church.

My point, then, is that science can be an aide to (but not a cause of) evangelism, but only if done right. Studies like this might make a man stop to consider other claims of the Church--if the study is done well. But if the claim he is considering is that because more practicing Catholics express satisfaction with sex than other people, he's more than likely to brush the whole thing aside, or worse use it to reinforce his own prejudices if he sees that such a study is being touted by Catholics as "Science."

Such studies are good for a laugh, and can be entertaining as conversation-starters. In some ways, they may even be no-brainers {2}. They are not, however, a substitute for good apologetics or a joyful witness to one's Faith.


----Notes---
{1} I will note as an aside, though, that it does give an indication as to whom is most satisfied with their sex life: the Catholics maybe are having better sex, or it could be that they value what sex they are having more than anybody else.

{2} This is arguably an even better conversation-starter, and one which actually is helpful for helping to evangelize.

Minimum Sentencing and No Child Left Behind

I like Mark Shea, I really do. I preface this post with this statement because sometimes he gets the facts wrong (or doesn't have all of the facts), and bad conclusions follow. This is such a case. Perils of blogging quantity and all that--it can't all be high quality (as he wryly admits in the tagline to his own blog).

His commenters are largely pointing out to him where he's gone wrong: minimum sentencing requirements for Florida, the woman left the house after her husband allegedly got violent, got a gun, then came back and fired a shot in the general direction of her husband (and children), which is a bit different from what Zimmerman did. That warning shot missed the husband's head by mere inches, by the way. The woman also had a history of assault, which Zimmerman does not, thus triggering the minimum sentencing; and also, Zimmerman never invoked Stand Your Ground Laws, whereas this woman (who definitely was not just "standing her ground") attempted to do so. In neither case was the law really applicable (in the woman's case, she had already "escaped" and then returned; in Zimmerman's, there was no chance to escape once the confrontation became actually violent enough to warrant running away). And neither case has anything to do with race, but both are being used by the race baiters (and to bad effect elsewhere), into whose hands Shea is unfortunately playing.

Here is the court document in Mrs. Alexander's case, and her is the "relevant part" quoted by Ace:
[Gray] moved to the living room where his children were. Subsequently, [Alexander] emerged from the master bedroom and went into the garage where her car was parked. [Alexander] testified she was trying to leave the residence but could not get the garage door to open. (The Court notes that despite [Alexander's] claim she was in fear for her life at that point and trying to get away from [Gray], she did not leave the house through the back or front doors which were unobstructed. Additionally, the garage door had worked previously and there was no evidence to support her claim.) [Alexander] then retrieved her firearm from the glove box of the vehicle. [Alexander] returned to the kitchen with the firearm in her hand and pointed it in the direction of all three victims. [Gray] put his hands in the air. [Alexander] shot at [Gray], barely missing his head. The bullet traveled through the kitchen wall and into the ceiling in the living room. The victims fled the residence and immediately called 911. [Alexander] stayed in the marital home and at no point called 911.

Ace also notes that Mrs. Alexander wasn't even actually living in the home at the time, for what that's worth. With this bit of ranting out of the way, I noticed an interesting comment on Shea's blog, comparing minimum sentencing (a fad in the 1980's) with No Child Left Behind (from President George W. Bush's Administration):
I heard she had been in trouble with the law before for assault and that's what triggered the mandatory sentencing. And also that it wasn't stand your ground because she went out of the house and came back and shot the gun off endangering the children present. The real problem here is the mandatory sentencing which was a big movement back in the 1980s. To me it is like No Child Left Behind in that it takes the authority away from the judge (or teacher) on how to, you know, judge or teach. So instead they have to follow guidelines that may or may not make sense in an individual's case.

Both would rather appear to strike at the idea of subsidiary, at least.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Quick Link: Jennifer Fulwiler on Building a Community

Lots of good stuff in this post. I especially appreciate how she's noted that you have to make sacrifices to make a community work, and that this is the kind of thing which is not instant, but instead takes many years (nine in her case):
Five years into our marriage, I felt like this whole community-building endeavor was a failure. Only my mom lived near us, and while she was a tremendous help, she was also busy with her full-time job. We’d been members of our parish for a couple of years, but I hadn’t really met many people. Any kind of socializing was difficult with two toddlers and a baby, and I didn’t even know my neighbors. What I didn’t understand then is that true communities don’t pop up overnight — or even over the span of a couple of years. It takes a lot of time, but the wait is well worth it.
She notes that not everybody can do this--it may be that we're included in "not everybody." But with a little bit of luck, at least a part of the family and a few good friends will live closeby. Community-building requires sacrifice, but it's well worth the effort.

Five years into our marriage, I felt like this whole community-building endeavor was a failure. Only my mom lived near us, and while she was a tremendous help, she was also busy with her full-time job. We’d been members of our parish for a couple of years, but I hadn’t really met many people. Any kind of socializing was difficult with two toddlers and a baby, and I didn’t even know my neighbors. What I didn’t understand then is that true communities don’t pop up overnight — or even over the span of a couple of years. It takes a lot of time, but the wait is well worth it. - See more at: http://www.conversiondiary.com/2013/07/how-we-built-our-village.html#comment-176861
Five years into our marriage, I felt like this whole community-building endeavor was a failure. Only my mom lived near us, and while she was a tremendous help, she was also busy with her full-time job. We’d been members of our parish for a couple of years, but I hadn’t really met many people. Any kind of socializing was difficult with two toddlers and a baby, and I didn’t even know my neighbors. What I didn’t understand then is that true communities don’t pop up overnight — or even over the span of a couple of years. It takes a lot of time, but the wait is well worth it. - See more at: http://www.conversiondiary.com/2013/07/how-we-built-our-village.html#comment-176861
Five years into our marriage, I felt like this whole community-building endeavor was a failure. Only my mom lived near us, and while she was a tremendous help, she was also busy with her full-time job. We’d been members of our parish for a couple of years, but I hadn’t really met many people. Any kind of socializing was difficult with two toddlers and a baby, and I didn’t even know my neighbors. What I didn’t understand then is that true communities don’t pop up overnight — or even over the span of a couple of years. It takes a lot of time, but the wait is well worth it. - See more at: http://www.conversiondiary.com/2013/07/how-we-built-our-village.html#comment-176861
Five years into our marriage, I felt like this whole community-building endeavor was a failure. Only my mom lived near us, and while she was a tremendous help, she was also busy with her full-time job. We’d been members of our parish for a couple of years, but I hadn’t really met many people. Any kind of socializing was difficult with two toddlers and a baby, and I didn’t even know my neighbors. What I didn’t understand then is that true communities don’t pop up overnight — or even over the span of a couple of years. It takes a lot of time, but the wait is well worth it. - See more at: http://www.conversiondiary.com/2013/07/how-we-built-our-village.html#comment-176861
Five years into our marriage, I felt like this whole community-building endeavor was a failure. Only my mom lived near us, and while she was a tremendous help, she was also busy with her full-time job. We’d been members of our parish for a couple of years, but I hadn’t really met many people. Any kind of socializing was difficult with two toddlers and a baby, and I didn’t even know my neighbors. What I didn’t understand then is that true communities don’t pop up overnight — or even over the span of a couple of years. It takes a lot of time, but the wait is well worth it. - See more at: http://www.conversiondiary.com/2013/07/how-we-built-our-village.html#comment-176861

Multiverse Musings

I'm may be a little late to this party, but Dr Stephen Barr has an article on First Things about multiverses and the LHC. It is a sort of follow-up to an older article of his, both of which were recently linked by Michael Flynn. In the article in question, Dr Barr discusses the likelihood that we live in a multiverse, and comes down in favor pf the idea.

I found this interesting, because I was under the impression that the people who largely favor the idea of a multiverse are those who do so for the ideological grounds of getting around fine-tuning arguments for theism. As an argument for atheism (of sorts)--this is largely the context that I have encountered the multiverse in, aside from Star Trek (but I repeat myself). Oddly enough, of the four authors of the paper which Dr Barr references (and is a co-author of), two are Catholics and one is an atheist.

Another musing on the same subject: the multiverse might (or might not) serve as an argument against a theistic basis for fine-tuning. Sure, it provides a multitude of universes, perhaps even infinitely many. But infinitely many does not mean "every possible combination," and we could indeed have infinitely many universes in which everything is nearly fine-tuned for life on earth: or even infinitely many in which all of the parameters relevant to the creation/evolution of life on earth are still so-tuned.


I also agree with Ye Olde Statistician (TOF)'s remark that physicists do themselves a disservice when referring to connected localities as universes. While I understand Dr Barr's exchange with commenter Boonton about two interpretations of the multiverse and the difference between the multiverse and many worlds, the change in the word's definition without any real fanfare does lead to confusion, and not just for amateurs.  Universe, cosmos: these two things have generally been used to mean "everything there is" (or at the least, "everything there is in the natural order" in the case of the universe). Thus, saying that the multiverse consists of a multitude of universes tends to make the reader think of something akin to the mirror universe in Star Trek, even though many physicists merely mean a realm of connected space-time and matter in which the various physical constants are, well, constant. It also gets the physicists into trouble when they attempt to comment on philosophical matters (which tend to use more traditional definitions like "the universe is defined as everything which exists in the natural order").


Finally, it occurs to me that regardless of whether there are infinitely many "universes" in the multiverse, none of St Thomas Five Ways are encessarily refuted. Indeed, the Fourth and Fifth way in particular might plausibly be said to be strengthened by the exist of many universes--and that's true whether we mean universes in the sense used by Dr Barr and other "cosmologists", or in the science fiction sense of "parallel universes," or in the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics (to say nothing of philosophy).

Monday, July 22, 2013

Some Economics of Interest

The Ace of Spades blog has two posts of interest on economics. The first notes that our system isn't really so capitalist as it ought to be, since we live in a world where Goldman Sachs can make billions of dollars from shipping aluminum back and forth between two (or more) warehouses. Here's hoping that the markets respond accordingly. Essentially, Goldman Sachs is wasting resources by doing this (in non-productive man-hours and in terms of fuel and repairs to the trucks used to make these shipments), all while causing the price of the aluminum in question to rise (reflected in higher soda prices). It's technically legal, but that doesn't make it right, and I hope this comes back to bite them in the end.

The second is Ace's summary of what makes for (upward) economic mobility. He lists four things:
1. Coming from an intact, two-parent family
2. Good schools
3. Civic engagement with churches and other social organizations 
Um... this study is obviously racist because it just recapitulates every racist Republican presidential platform since 1984. 
There's also a fourth: 
4. Living in neighborhoods containing a mix of higher-income people 
I think that fourth one is about keeping the idea of aspiration and betterment alive in kids' minds-- you sort of need to see that people who play by the rules prosper by the rules.
This completely damns Blue State Welfarism. As if Detroit, where 47% of the population is functionally illiterate, didn't establish that case already. You will therefore not hear of this again.

He ties some of these things to Detroit, which basically has a dearth of all four.

A Cogent Case Contra Pornography

The Telegraph's Dr Tim Stanley makes an argument that Lady Thatcher would not support free access to pornography, and (more importantly) that conservatives right now shouldn't either. His concluding paragraphs are especially good:
This is what happens to conservatism when you strip it of moralism – it becomes economically deterministic, heartless in some quarters, libertine in most. It is the law of the jungle, in that it barely has any laws at all. Ironically, its end result is not a recognisably conservative society but a rather more liberal one. 
Comrades, we conservatives should be no friends of pornography. It is vicarious prostitution (you pay other people to have sex on your behalf, which is just sad), its links to organised crime are well documented, it dislocates sex from its natural or romantic states, and it undoes social cohesion. We shouldn’t outlaw porn, but we can regulate it and keep it away from kids – as we do with alcohol.
"Vicarious prostitution" seems like an apt enough description. Or, as C.S. Lewis put it (in describing the fantasies of masturbation, of which pornography might be a set), 
"For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides...the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival...In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself."
Conservatives and especially Christians should rejoice over Britain's efforts to regulate porn. We ought to do the same here in the states. This is true whether Lady Thatcher (or Ronald Reagan here) would have approved of such regulation, though I somehow suspect that both would be on the side of at least commonsense regulations (e.g. allowing households to opt-out, or better yet requiring to to opt in if they want to have access to it).

Some Good News from England

This is something which I hope to see emulated in the US:
Most households in the UK will have pornography blocked by their internet provider unless they choose to receive it, David Cameron has announced. 
In addition, the prime minister said possessing online pornography depicting rape would become illegal in England and Wales - in line with Scotland....


However, I'm skeptical that either party in the US will really and seriously take up this cause, which is very unfortunate. This is a relatively simple fix, and moreover it's an optional fix, meaning that households can in principle opt out. Would that this option be taken away, but something tells me that a populace which is widely addicted to porn wouldn't go for that. Still, there are plenty of folks who are addicted, who recognize that it's a problem, and who would be happy to implement this relatively easy solution as an aide to avoiding and then overcoming this addiction.

A Few Good Links (vol. 2)

Another round of tab-clearing:
  1. Via the American Catholic, this article on what it means (or doesn't mean) to be a "gifted" child--or a rotten parent.
  2. Via Mark Shea, more about fake dudgeon and child abuse.
  3. From the Imaginative Conservative, Julie Robison argues that we need not only "protect our progress" (as the liberals says), but also our Constitution.
  4. Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the increasing militarization of our police forces (and, for that matter, other enforcement agencies).
  5. "A disordered sexuality is so powerful that it can unseat our reason entirely. Thus, sexual virtue (chastity) is a necessary condition of a rational life." The source of that quote is my friend Dr Rob Koons.
  6. "But it seems fair to assume that there are still a lot of people who would prefer to meet their future spouse the old fashioned way — through initial flesh-and-blood encounters embedded in a larger pre-existing social network. If that’s your preference, the university campus is one of the few flesh-and-blood arenas that seems to be holding its own as a place to form lasting attachments." Two comments on this article. First, this seems to me to be a implicit argument in favor of meeting a spouse when young--which is also an argument of sorts for getting married younger. If so, then bravo! Second,  should add that the one place which should (but doesn't) trump the university as a place to meet one's future spouse is the church (which is not to say that every man should meet his future wife at either the church or the university). I should add here that I met my wife at the Catholic center of our university, so mine is a both/and.
  7. The Nicene Guys have a post up about marriage and catechesis. "Marriage lived out faithfully and joyfully thus becomes a sign of contradiction, a statement that we do not have to settle for the empty promises of hedonism, that we do not have to be ruled by the passions of the moment. It is a rejection of the allure of the evil one, and better it is evidence that we are left happier having done so."
That's it for now.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Race-Baiting Redox: Three Links

The title pretty much says it all, that I am passing along three links related to the fallout of the Zimmerman trial:

  1. Race baiters like Al $harpton should consider looking to their own house first. This is because by far the vast majority of crimes against blacks are committed by other blacks, amounting to 10,000 murders since Trayvon Martin. They won't do it, because there's money to be made from stirring up racial hatred and mistrust: that's how the Democrats keep black folks as virtual voting serfs.
  2. It's not just blacks who are the victims of the crime committed by blacks, though these are the majority of the victims. Blacks and Hispanics account for the vast majority of all criminals in cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, and DC, and policies such as stop-and-frisk etc. actually target white in a higher proportions than their share of crimes committed. Racism, my foot.
  3. As the coup de grace, there is an anchor stating that more white kids need to die in order for whites to become more sympathetic to racism. Guess which "news" agency the anchor works for? Is anybody surprised by this?

There is still a bit of racial tension left in America. Its flames are largely stoked by hucksters and hacks like Al $harpton, Eric Holder, and their ilk.

Friday, July 19, 2013

"If Only"

It's too bad about Trayvon Martin: really, it is. But there's lots of racially charged "if only's" being thrown out, including by the Dear Leader. "If only..."

If only Zimmerman hadn't followed Martin after calling the cops. What Zimmerman did was stupid, there's no doubt about that. If only we could legislate away stupidity, if only. And it's too bad that Martin turned on him and confronted him. If only Martin had just walked away, if only, rather than attacking Zimmerman. If only Zimmerman had taken that beating like a man, or fought back hand-to-hand, if only he'd just surrendered rather than trying to defend himself with a gun. If only, if only.

And the latest comes from the Dear Leader, who previously said (and this was before the trial had concluded, mind you) that if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin. Then he asked if it would have been ok for Martin to stand his ground had he been armed, if only, and saying that the outcome would be different, that Martin would be alive (and Zimmerman dead), that the world would be a better place if only. Now Obama's saying that he could have been Trayvon Martin. And we all mourn and shake our heads and say, "If only, if only."

More seriously, though: what Zimmerman did was foolish, and ill-advised. That we even need to consider finding some law to blame this on, or some lack of law to blame it on, that we would even be considering changing a state's laws over one man's stupidity is proof of a deeper problem Daniel Flynn hits on the problem when he states that this was a case involving two males and no men. The problem is not one which can be easily legislated away, nor should we really try. It's what a few of my friends would call a moral problem, the kind that laws don't fix, the kind of thing that Chesterton was talking about when he said that those who don't get the big laws will get the little laws.

Quick Link: Peggy Nonnan on the IRS Hearings

Peggy Noonan has a column up for the Wall Street Journal about the hearing concerning the IRS behavior in targeting conservative but not liberal groups for reviews. From this, we learn three things:

  1. "Rogue agents" apparently include the IRS' Chief Counsel (appointed by Obama himself):
    'When the scandal broke two months ago, in May, IRS leadership in Washington claimed the harassment of tea-party and other conservative groups requesting tax-exempt status was confined to the Cincinnati office, where a few rogue workers bungled the application process. {snip} So: What the IRS originally claimed was a rogue operation now reaches up not only to the Washington office, but into the office of the IRS chief counsel himself.'
  2. Conservative groups were in fact singled out and targetted for being conservative, whereas liberal/progressive groups were not singled out/targetted for being liberal/progressive:
    'Ms. Hofacre of the Cincinnati office testified that when she was given tea-party applications, she had to kick them upstairs. When she was given non-tea-party applications, they were sent on for normal treatment. Was she told to send liberal or progressive groups for special scrutiny? No, she did not scrutinize the applications of liberal or progressive groups. "I would send those to general inventory." Who got extra scrutiny? "They were all tea-party and patriot cases." She became "very frustrated" by the "micromanagement" from Washington. "It was like working in lost luggage." She applied to be transferred.'
  3. There's a reason why very few people watch C-Span, which is nevertheless the one news organization which deliver the straight facts (literally, but you have to watch the whole hearing/proceeding etc. since they often don't summarize):
    'That is a bombshell—such a big one that it managed to emerge in spite of an unfocused, frequently off-point congressional hearing in which some members seemed to have accidentally woken up in the middle of a committee room, some seemed unaware of the implications of what their investigators had uncovered, one pretended that the investigation should end if IRS workers couldn't say the president had personally called and told them to harass his foes, and one seemed to be holding a filibuster on Pakistan.' 


At least, that's what I got from it. That, and that Republicans need to "up their game", which might (we can hope) lead directly to Obama himself. It would be nice to see him impeached, but somehow I doubt that all these scandals (individually or together) will end up giving us that happy result.

Quick Links: Austin Summers Really Are Brutal

And by "brutal," I mean among the worst in the country. I notice that the places with the worst summers are mostly in Texas, and the places with the best are mostly on the west coast.

Media Priorities

I'm with Ace on this one. First of all, what's happening in Detroit may be what happens to the rest of the country under Obamacare if it's ever actually implemented. Second, it's funny how the media makes a "national conversation" out of the Zimmerman trial but ignores things which are arguably more relevant to the national (because they are actually systematic and endemic):
The media wants to talk a bunch about the Zimmerman case and have "national conversations" about lessons we need to learn from a 45-second confrontation involving two people. 
Notice they don't want to have national conversations about what lessons we can learn from 51 years of True Blue Democratic administration in Detroit.

Things like the slow decline to bankruptcy of Detroit under the union regs and Democrat policies (only to be told, in essence, to drop dead by the Obama White House), or like the similar bankruptcy of every other city in high-tax, high-spending blue-as-the-ocean California, are largely ignored by the media. They sometimes/often report that it happened (a rare case of actually reporting the news, though without any real investigative journalism involved), but it's for some reason never material for a "national conversation." Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to delay the full implementation of the employer mandate (though not the evil HHS contraceptive/abortifacient mandate) while working on finding a way to satisfy his special interests group (like the unionswhich are suddenly against it), knowing full well that this is exactly the kind of thing that will turn American into one big Bankrupt California, or Detroit. And when the unemployment rate goes up permanently, I expect the crime rate to follow.

But yes, dear media and Dear Leader, please feel free to make this a national conversation about how we need to get rid of "stand your ground" laws and need more strict gun control, and about how self-defense is raciss.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Rant: Christians, Atheists, and Turing Tests

Leah Librisco is continuing her rather intriguing "Ideological Turing Test," which has Christians pretending to be atheists and atheists pretending to be Christians, and readers of all stripes attempting to guess which is which (the Christians also write Christian responses, the atheists atheist responses). I still consider the questions asked in the first contest to be the best, since they are questions which actually can be answered by even modestly intellectually curious Christians and atheists alike. I skimmed the second contest, but really didn't like the questions as much--ironically, as a matter of taste.

This year's questions focus on sex (specifically, polyamory), death (euthanasia and assisted suicide), and literature. Again, interesting to see what kind of responses people leave, but I still liked the first set of questions more, perhaps in part because they get at the core intellectual reasons why people are either Christian or atheist. I will grant that I have known some aesthetic converts to Christianity, and a few Christians whose minds became poisoned by atheist prose to the point of apostasy, but it is very rare that I have met a person who actually bases his religious beliefs on the existence of the music of JS Bach.

With that said, I am largely not going to try judging these this time around. The thing is, there are at least three sides to the Ideological Turing Test: Atheist, Protestant, and Catholic. And that's without getting into the differences between liberal/conservative Protestants, faithful and faithless Catholics, atheists and agnostics, etc. An atheist pretending to be a (theologically if not politically) liberal Protestant is likely not going to impress a faithful Catholic--but neither is a liberal Protestant. But there are at least a few Protestants who really are theists, and who might even go so far as to believe in the resurrection, but who are otherwise liberal--and from here on I mean theologically and morally liberal, not politically liberal per se. There are also a few self-styled Christians who don't in the least believe in a historical Jesus, or that the historical man Jesus was also true God, the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity made flesh.

To be perfectly honest, I cannot tell whether a person who opens his answer to the question of polygamy by writing, "First, polygamy should be legal....Second, there’s no reason to say that polygamy is a sin" and who then goes on to justify suicide in certain cases is a liberal Christian, or an atheist trying to play the part of a liberal Christian. Two years ago, I would have written this response off as an atheist doing a half-ass job, but that doesn't do justice to some of the atheists in this game [1].

The thing is, there do exist some Protestants who might formulate their answers this way (apparently Luther, for one). There probably also exist some people who are baptized Catholics who would agree. Yet, when I read a line like that, I don't generally consider those people when trying to decide if the writer is a Christian or not.

Maybe it's just that I expect people to take their religion seriously. Maybe I need to work on not being judgmental of others' sincerity--to separate, that is, their sincerity in Christ from their sincere endorsement of sins. Or maybe it's that in this way I view the world as those who need to be evangelized and/or catechized, and those who don't. In summary, those who already know and embrace the fullness of the Catholic faith don't need much more catechesis, whereas those who don't do. I view error as error, with some errors being worse than others--but I'm as likely to think that a liberal Protestant (or Catholic) needs conversion as an apathetic agnostic or an acknowledged atheists. 

When a conservative Protestant converts to Catholicism, I tend to rejoice for the sake of Christian unity and for the sake of a closer theological bond between us. When a liberal Christian (Catholic or Protestant) becomes a more orthodox Christian--when he starts to recognize that sin exists and must be repented of, that Jesus Christ is more than a mere moral teacher, that hell as well as heaven is a distinct destination, that some parts of the Bible--including the New Testament miracles and the Old Testament Law--are literally true: the kind of rejoicing that I know then is of a different magnitude of degree entirely [2]. Similarly for the frustration and sorrow that I feel when these kinds of conversions don't happen.

So to return to the Ideological Turing Test, I like the concept, and find the responses interesting. But it would be almost as interesting to make it really ideological, to see if a liberal Christian can understand (and mimic) a conservative one and vice-versa. As it stands, the two groups are too broad. Or perhaps it is just the right breadth to unintentionally teach us something about ourselves. Certainly, I wonder if my lack of empathy for error hampers my efforts at evangelizing.


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[1] Oddly enough, I was right more often than not when I did this, with the exceptions being various Protestants and Church-hating Catholics (for lack of a better term) who were hostile to organized/authoritative religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular.

[2] FWIW, conversions from non-Christian to at least mere Christian give me a joy which is actually different in kind.

Definitions and Exclusions, Funny How That Works

We as Catholics can defend marriage without being discriminatory because, first of all, nothing in our definition is about “exclusion” in the pejorative sense. Rather, oddly enough, our definition of marriage acts as a definition. Definition is perhaps a form of exclusion, but to say that it’s a form of ‘humiliation’ is to introduce “convenient reasoning” to the argument. We delineate what marriage is, who may get married, and why they get married. We do so because it benefits the individual, the couple, the child, and their country. We do so because marriage for generations has been upheld for this purpose.

Amazing how that works. Once a thing is defined, that definitions excludes anything which doesn't fit. Once I have defined what a dog is, I have excluded all the cats, and once i have defined a fish, I have excluded whales. So it goes with marriage.